Ticks per second and jiffies. Whats the difference?

Question

On Linux, Is there a difference between jiffies and ticks per second? I understand relation between jiffies and HZ. But i am unable to comprehend how is ticks per second related. I read somewhere that its a internal OS timer, but when we have jiffies why do we need another one? Can someone please explain?

Answer 1

A Jiffy is a length unit; it can refer to different time lengths, but it's a length unit. A tick is a computation unit; it is unrelated to time, but rather is related to the system timer interrupt (which may be defined by time, but how that timer is defined doesn't affect the fact that the quantity of work that's done in that period is defined as a tick).